To Love the Chess King
by Grey Field
Summary: Though he seems lazy, and slow, no one can match him on the board. Each move calculated, and refined. Every possibility carefully analyzed. For a short time each month that focus is on me. He/Ro


AN: Hello, welcome to my first (and probably last) Harry Potter Fan Fic, a sarcastic huzzah all round. To be honest I'm not a big fan of the books. You see all those years ago (not long after the 'Chamber of Secrets' was published) my father read the first book out-loud to the family, and I fell in love. After that I eagerly awaited each book, and when the movies came out I was one of those who stood in line for the midnight showings (no I was not in costume, but only because I could not find a good robe and scarf). Then I began to enjoy the series less and less, and I realized why. After the first book Ron (my favorite character) became utterly useless. Instead of giving him a unique set of skills, JK turned him into a less talented version of Harry (at least skill wise), inevitably placing him in a Robin role. People tell me that he becomes useful again in the final book, and I want to believe them, but I can't even get past the third chapter of HBP. JK's broke my heart into to many pieces to pick up again. So here is one for Ron.

Important AN: I am not good at spelling, and this has not been beta read, so don't just tell me the spelling sucks, or more often that I used homonyms instead of the proper words, I know that already. Instead point out specific words or places I got wrong in the story, and I will correct them. Also the students on 'the list' are all OC (well except for the obvious one of corse) so don't bother trying to look them up.

Enough of my dribbling, you didn't come to listen to my life story, you came for a story of Hogwarts.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all encompassed within said series are not nor ever will be mine to call my own.

-Begin-

To Love the Chess King

At Hogwarts, school of witch craft and wizardry there is one game that is feared. Only few students will dare pull out a board, even most teachers will cringe at it's name. It is a game of strategy and cunning, of intelligence and planning, known as Chess. A game that many think I, Hermione Granger, top of my year would be good at, and they would be right. I am rather good, but I am nothing compared to HIM. The one who rules the Hogwarts chess world with sixteen tiny raised fists. Over the years I have comforted many crying girls who wish to impress him by playing the game, over their resulting nightmares of giant knights crashing down upon them, and his stern face.

Every year it is the same. A small first year will pull out a board and ask, with no idea of the horrors they are about to unleash. "Does any one want to play chess?"

The whole room will go quiet. Every one will step away from the child. Some times when the first year has an older friend they will respond along the lines of, 'You Fool!' before diving away. Then like a feared god, Ronald Bilius Weasley will rise. His red hair foreshadowing the flaming destruction he brings to the board. Every eye in the room turns to him. In these moments he does not need to clear himself a path, no one stands in his way. Calmly he will walk across the room. When he reaches the first year he will say, in a friendly tone, 'I'll play.'

Sitting down he wordlessly sets his old and battered pieces onto the board. One might laugh at this hammy-down set, but it has a history. Those pieces have played and won ten thousand games, long before any of us were born, and those little pieces do not know loss. A Weasley family heirloom, Ron's grandfather, a three time winner of the wizards national chess games, gave it to him after Ron beat him five times in a row, just as he had to beat his own grandfather before it was given to him.

He will usually let the new kid go first. As soon as the child makes his move Ron will bark out his command. He does not pause to think of his next move, he does not need to. Already he has taken in the whole board, every move his opponent might make and how he should react. The game never lasts long. Even when Ron is feeling ill or generous it wont last longer then ten minutes. Then they will play again and again, each game shorter then the last as Ron learns more of the new comers strategy, until the first year cries out in frustration, and goes off.

Most will never play chess again, sure in the knowledge that he will come again to strike them down, but a few, a very rare few will not give up. These are the students that will scour the library for records of past matches from world tournaments, and sift through them looking for valuable strategies. After a month or so they will challenge him again. They lose, so some give up and others continue. Several months later, after finding more obscure ideas and moves, again they will try defeating him. Again they all lose. More will decide to give up and the remainder continue.

Those who are left at this point know that they will never beat Ron, but that is not why they continue. They continue to battle him for the honor of him asking for there name, so he might put it down on his list. Not many have made the list, no more then two dozen or so. What it means if some one makes the list is that Ron Weasly, tyrant of chess, thinks this person is interesting to play against. Once every few weeks he will go and visit each person on the list, and will play them a game, those that he can not visit he plays games by letter, or other means.

The people on the list are all rather odd, and their personalities very. The first one listed is his grandfather who originally gave him his set and taught him how to play, several teachers such as Mcgonical and professor Binns have made it on, a few people employed at the ministry of magic, several miscellaneous people that do not seem to have anything in common, and 9 students at Hogwarts.

The students are arguably the oddest of the bunch, 2 from Hufflepuff, 3 from Ravenclaw, 1 from Slytherin, and 3 from Gryffindor. All of them have some unique talent or skill that makes them interesting to play against. The two from Hufflepuff are Tomes Solemn, according to Ron his strategies are predictable but hard to counter, and Rachel Barunotto, who's eccentric style is what won her place on the list. Among the Ravenclaws there is Kate Mazer, a girl who's seemingly disjointed moves make her strategies nearly impossible to see, Jim Smith a boy who can predict anyones moves so well it seems to border on clairvoyance (ironically he does not believe in such things), and Susan Coin who's encyclopedic mind will catalogue every move and be able to perfectly remember a match. From Slytherin there is Conrad Murphy, an asocial boy who is devious, cunning, and will resort to psychological war fair, trickery, and anything he can think of to win (stopping just short of cheating because as he puts it 'why break when it's far more entertaining to twist'). This combined with his off the wall strategies have earned him the honer of being one of the only people to ever have bested Ron in a match. Those from Gryffindor are Mark Anderson who changes his tactics at strange but highly effective moments, and June Higbe who can tack most strategies and perfect them to a T. The last student on the list is (to my secret pride and joy) me.

I am not like the others. I did not scour the library records for strategies, or stay up late at night thinking through games in my head so that I could beat him. I did not seek out and ask advice from the other people on the list for him to consider me a great player. I did all of those things for a very simple reason. I did it so that every month or so he will play me, and for a short time, all his attention is on me and our game.

The truth is I am like those girls I comfort, who only play to impress him, to get him to notice them. Though the rest of them will never know, when they cry over how he ignores them, I am secretly happy. I am happy that they will never know what it is like for him to ask them for a game. I am glad that they will never know what it is like for the world to shrink down to him and the game, or what it is like to be the sole focus of his attention. I am overjoyed that they will never know that way he bites his lip when he is thinking about a move, that gleam in his eye when he sees a strategy come together, or the way he gives a warm smile and says "good game." I am ecstatic that they will never experience any of it, because those are the moments I treasure above all others.

Sometimes I look at the others on the list, all of them far more skilled then myself, and I wonder why did I make his list. Then I can hope, that I am not on the list because of my strategies or skills, but that he likes playing against me because it is me that he is playing. Maybe he treasures those times, where the world is reduced to the two of us, as much as I do.

-End-

That's it, review if you like, or don't. Either way is fine.


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